The Worth Of A Black Kid: Tamir Rice’s Family To Be Settled With $6M

Cleveland officials suggested on Monday to give the settlement for the family of a 12-year-old Tamir Rice who was fatally shot by a police officer in 2014.

Tamir Rice was shot dead by a Cleveland police officer, Timothy Loehmann, while playing with a toy gun in a recreation center. Sometime in January 2015, Rice’s family filed a lawsuit against the city for being negligent in their son’s death.

At last, Cleveland officials have agreed to settle the family of the deceased with $6 million, half of it will be paid this year and the other half next year. According to reports, the settlement “would allow City Hall to avoid a wrongful-death lawsuit in court”.

Rice’s family lawyers, Earl S. Ward and Jonathan S. Abady, said in a statement that, “Nothing will bring Tamir back. His unnecessary and premature death leaves a gaping hole for those who knew and loved him that can never be filled.”

This latest settlement, paid to families of black men and women who were murdered by police officers, has given us a clue of how authorities devalue black lives. Black people are bought and sold as slaves. They die from the hands of police officers and all what their families get sometimes is a financial settlement but not justice. The money will never fix the fact that the officers involved in Tamir Rice`s murder didn’t face any charges. The same thing is about many other cases of police fatal shootings.

Life is priceless and no money can console the pain of people who lost their loved ones.